What would you say if I told you the NSA's "Puzzle Palace" is getting ready to exceed its electrical capacity? You know what happens when computers exceed their electrical capacity? Here's a clue: This could bring a whole new meaning to "dark ops".
I wish I was creative enough to have invented that plot device. It sounds like something Kurt Vonnegut might write ... but you wouldn't expect him to actually publish it because no one would accept the premise. Now you know why they say truth is stranger than fiction; it really is.
You're not going to believe this but The National Security Agency is running out of juice!
Wait! There's more....
Here's the scoop:
According to the Baltimore Sun:
[NSA] officials anticipated the problem nearly a decade ago as they looked ahead at the technology needs of the agency, sources said, but it was never made a priority, and now the agency's ability to keep its operations going is threatened. The NSA is already unable to install some costly and sophisticated new equipment, including two new supercomputers, for fear of blowing out the electrical infrastructure."
Un.Fucking.Believe.Able.
The problem was well documented, but they didn't make the fix a priority? God, where have I heard this before?
They got so greedy with their desire to scoop up all the marbles they forgot they didn't have enough resources to complete the mission? God, where have I heard this before? It sounds so damn familiar...
These are the braniacs who are going to save us from death and destruction through their visionary application of next gen technology? Yeah... right. Left to their own devices they would probably blow the circuit breakers like a bunch of drunken frat boys at a kegger who plug in one too many guitars and crank the amps to 11 !!!!
The article goes on to comment:
At minimum, the problem could produce disruptions leading to outages and power surges at the Fort Meade headquarters, hampering the work of intelligence analysts and damaging equipment, they said. At worst, it could force a virtual shutdown of the agency, paralyzing the intelligence operation, erasing crucial intelligence data and causing irreparable damage to computer systems.
But here is the money quote: If that happened it would be...wait for it..... "detrimental to the fight against terrorism." Brilliant!!!! Kind of like saying the collapse of communism was detrimental to the Soviet Union reaching a utopian dictatorship of the proletariat.
You get a sense of the problem when you learn that the NSA is BG&E's largest customer. They utilize as much energy as the city of Annapolis! How long before the lights go out and everyone has to clean out the fridge? If I told you, you would call me hysterical and fit me for a tin foil hat. But I am just repeating what they are reporting....
Estimates on how long the agency has to stave off such an overload vary from just two months to less than two years. NSA officials "claim they will not be able to operate more than a month or two longer unless something is done."
No matter how you cut it, that sucker is going to go down faster than Jeff Gannon at a White House slumber party! And here's the funny part...it's gonna happen on Georgie's watch! Of course this is all opportunistic Bush Bashing... I mean who knew this was going to happen, right? Oh wait! Turns out, this happened once before .... during Clinton's watch!!! And after 9/11 they still didn't make it a priority!!!
The agency got a taste of the potential for trouble Jan. 24, 2000, when an information overload, rather than a power shortage, caused the NSA's first-ever network crash. It took the agency 3 1/2 days to resume operations, but with a power outage it could take considerably longer to get the NSA humming again.
The 2000 shutdown rendered the agency's headquarters "brain-dead," as then-NSA Director Gen. Michael V. Hayden told CBS's 60 Minutes in 2002.
"I don't want to trivialize this. This was really bad," Hayden said. "We were dark. Our ability to process information was gone."
Maybe it's me, maybe it's too much to ask, but you would think that anyone pimping Total Information Awareness would be aware of the fact that if you plug everything in, you are going to blow all the circuits... again!
I can see the ads now:
Warrantless NSA wiretapping: $100 Billion
Uncontrolled energy consumption: 7 GWatts
Total Information Awareness: Powerless
It's not nice to fool Mother Nature. She does not have a sense of humor.
